Mother condemns joyriders as son endures severe burns
A furious mother today condemned joyriders who set fire to car which exploded, seriously injuring her five-year-old son.
Michael McLaughlin is now being treated at the Paediatric Burns Unit the Royal Victoria in Belfast, where parents Margaret and Kevin have kept vigil at his bedside. He suffered severe burns to his hands and face. His condition has been described as seriously ill.
“I’m angry, really, really angry. I’m devastated,” said the mother-of-10. “My children are my life, that’s what I live and breathe.”
“If anything happened to any (of them) I would go ballistic. If I had got the person in front of me God knows ... I wouldn’t like to think what I would do.”
The boy was among 40 children aged between four and 15 who were watching the blazing Peugeot 405 at Temple Park in the Galliagh estate in Derry before its fuel tank exploded at around 10pm yesterday.
The blast was so severe that it blew some of his clothes off.
Station Officer Kevin Chester said when fire crews were putting out the blaze they were told the child had been injured.
“While crews put out the fire, other firefighters made their way to and retraced the route of the child to his home address,” he said.
“We administered a specialist burns kit to the child and treated him until the arrival of the ambulance service.”
Fire crews had been called to the area earlier in the night to extinguish a bonfire. Sub Officer Kevin Chester said that dozens of other children had a lucky escape in the blast.
“When we arrived in Galliagh for the second time that night we saw the car well alight and were told that a young boy had already been burned and ran home in great distress.
“We ran to his house though an open back fence in Rossnagalliagh, where his mother was hysterical.
“The boy was docile because he was in shock and we treated him at the scene before he was taken to hospital.”
Michael was initially treated at Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry before being transferred to Belfast.
Community leaders said that the nightly combination of joyriders and children on the large green area around Temple Park and Rossnagalliagh had long been “a tragedy waiting to happen”.
Parish priest Father Stephen McLaughlin said: “I'm shocked that a child is injured - especially a five-year-old child - it is awful.”
“When you have cars racing around in a heavily populated area and people racing in green areas like this - where they know there are young people out playing - then it is almost inevitable that somebody is going to be seriously injured, or God forbid, someone is going to be killed.”
Father McLaughlin, who spoke to the injured boy’s family, said they were furious at what had happened.
“They have been aware of the problems of joyriding because their house backs on to the park where it happened,” he said. “The mother is coming to terms with it, but she’s also anxious to try and get the wider problem addressed.”
“People who sell these cars off to young people for a few quid should also be condemned,” said Mary Bradley, an SDLP Assembly member in Derry. “They are responsible too because if they hadn’t done this the car wouldn’t have been burnt and the child wouldn’t have been injured.”
Police said they will be carrying out a forensic examination of the car, which remained at the scene this morning. Anyone with any information is asked to contact Strand police on (00 44) 028 7136 7337.
